Don’t Séance I Didn’t Warn You!

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A girl’s first high school
Halloween party is a stressful event. You want to look hot but not slutty, and
you need to look like you put work into your costume, but not too much work. It’s a delicate balance
when you’re working on a budget, but I landed on Bride of Frankenstein. I
already had a white formal dress that fit just right, and my mom helped me with
the crazy hair and eyebrows.

It was October, 1986, and I’d
only moved to Flatland, Texas, that summer. It didn’t leave much time to make
friends before the start of my junior year, so I was thrilled when I met Annie
Edwards at marching band practice. She was outgoing, friendly, and
popular—everything I wasn’t. So I helped her with the clarinet her mother made
her play, and Annie made sure I had fun. It was Annie who got me invited to
Stephanie Hughes’ annual Halloween shindig. October had brought a strange
melancholy to the atmosphere at school, so it would be nice to have some fun.

The first freeze was a few weeks
off and Annie was between boyfriends, so we decided to walk to the party
together. She was dressed as Barbara Eden, the genie from that old TV show.

“Is there going to be beer at
the party?” I asked. “My dad will kill me if there’s beer at this party. It
took my mom three days to convince him to let me go at all.”

Annie laughed until she snorted.
“Lucy, you’ve got to learn to relax. If God didn’t want teenagers to drink, he
wouldn’t have invented gum and mouthwash.”

“What else should I expect? What
did you guys do at Stephanie’s party last year?”

Annie stopped and grabbed my
arm, making me stumble. “Don’t bring up last year.” Her tone was sharp. “I had
to pull serious strings to even get you invited. Just don’t mention last Halloween,
okay?”

Her sudden attitude shift
evaporated with a smile. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s hurry up and get there
before all the good boys get picked over. I’m not in the mood to wait for the
Great Pumpkin all by myself.”

I shivered. “I can’t believe I
let you talk me out of wearing my coat. It’s freezing out here.”

She scoffed. “It’s just a few
more blocks to Stephanie’s house. Just enough time to get your high beams on.
Consider it your incentive to get a ride home from Daniel Shultz.” I tried to
slap her away as she elbowed me in the ribs.

Daniel Shultz was a senior. The
poor boy had no idea how bad I had it for him, but Annie loved to tease me
about it. He wanted to run away from Flatland to direct movies, and all I
wanted in the whole world was to run away with him. I could write screenplays
or maybe help with casting. Okay, so the details were fuzzy, but It would be
worth it—even when my dad tracked us down and murdered the both of us.

Stephanie lived in a nice
two-story house, a rare thing in our town. We got to her front door just as the
streetlights popped on. Annie rang the doorbell and turned to me. “Whatever you
do, don’t let me get drunk and make out with Jeff Gill. Promise?”

“What?” I asked as the door
flung open.

Webbed fingers groped for us as a
green monster roared in our faces. I screamed, but it was more out of reflex
than fear. Jeff took off a green rubber mask and laughed at me as I caught my
breath.

Annie rolled her eyes. “What are
you supposed to be, Mr. Gill?”

Jeff held up the mask. It was
some kind of fish monster. “I’m the Gill Man, baby. Get it? Gill? The Gill
Man?”

“You’re going to have to try
harder than that.” Annie planted her hand in his chest and shoved him out of
the way. I put on my best along-for-the-ride grin as I walked past.

The house was a nice mix of sexy
and scary. In the crowd I spotted a Romero Zombie, Cleopatra, two Jason
Vorheeses, half the cast of Rocky Horror,
a Mike Myers, and three sexy nurses who regretted not coordinating better. The
place was already a mess.

“Where’s Stephanie’s parents?” I
asked.

Annie shrugged. “Bermuda? I
dunno. Wait here a minute!” She disappeared around a corner.

“Annie! Get back here!” It was
too late. I was abandoned. But, as always, there was a method to Annie’s
madness.

The sound of my pleas drew the
attention of a welcome face from the kitchen. Lo and behold, it was Daniel
Shultz in a black outfit and a polka dot necktie. A rubber ear poked up out of
his chest pocket like a silk handkerchief. “Lucy! I wasn’t sure you were
coming.”

Annie,
I
thought, you little sneak. You set this up.

Daniel handed me a plastic cup
full of foul-smelling liquid. “Got you a beer. Don’t know what kind it is.
Whatever keg fell off the truck, I guess.”

“Thanks!” I sipped what could
only have been very expired beer. Sorry,
Daddy, I thought. One of the sexy nurses started up the stereo.

“I said, ‘Thanks!’” I gestured
at black jeans and dress clothes. “Who are you supposed to be?”

He looked frustrated. “I’m
Jeffrey Beaumont from Blue Velvet.
You know, the David Lynch movie?”

I could only shrug.

“It just came out.” His
shoulders drooped. “Crap. I knew I should have gone with Eraserhead.”

“Definitely,” I said, nursing my
beer and making a mental list for the video store.

Daniel looked back over my
shoulder. “Oh, crap.”

I turned to see the most
pathetic Raggedy Ann I’d ever seen. Stephanie Hughes’ costume was right out of
a storybook, but she looked like she’d just gotten home from a funeral. She
must have used the old talcum powder trick that clowns use to set her doll
makeup, because she’d already been crying. “Have you seen Jamie?” she asked.
She meant Jamie Goldberg, another friend of hers and Annie’s.

“Sorry,” I said, but Stephanie
just walked away in a daze. I squeezed Daniel’s arm and asked, “What was that
about?”

“Right, you couldn’t have known.
Stephanie’s boyfriend, Will Freese, he got in a car wreck last Halloween.
Nobody’s fault, just a freak thing. He never woke up and died a few hours
later.”

Damn
it, Annie, I thought. This is
the kind of thing you’re supposed to tell me about.

Daniel sighed. “None of us are
over it, but Steph still has it pretty bad. I’m surprised she even wanted to
have another party this year, but it’s like a tradition.”

The front door opened and Jamie
stepped inside, dressed as Jennifer Beals from Flashdance. She gripped a bag from Toy Castle, the big toy store
that looked like a castle, tight against her chest. “Where’s Steph?”

“She was just looking for you,”
I said, pointing the direction Stephanie had wandered off. Jamie ran past
without so much as a dramatic hair toss. Daniel’s eye followed her with concern
creasing his forehead.

With a gasp, I remembered
Annie’s request. “Help me find my friend before she’s carrying a fish baby?”
Daniel grinned and grabbed my hand, dragging me from room to room. We searched
in vain for Annie and her monster.

We made the loop and returned to
the living room. “Can’t say we didn’t try,” I said as we flopped down on the
couch. “What was that Pencilneck
movie you were talking about?” Daniel laughed and proceeded to tell me about a
weirdo film I had zero interest in ever seeing. We found a middle ground and
talked about old Hitchcock movies, which my dad was a freak for. My theory was
that Dad was studying up. That way, when he finally killed me for missing
curfew, he’d get away with it scot-free.

We talked for hours, until the keg
was empty and the party started to thin out. That was when I heard someone
giggle behind the couch. I found Annie and Jeff entwined under a blanket on the
floor, looking embarrassed.

“What?” Jeff asked. “The
bedrooms were taken.”

“No they weren’t,” Annie said,
shoving him.

“When did you two get back
there?” Daniel asked.

“Somewhere between Strangers on a Train and North by Northwest,” Annie said. “Help
me up.”

We clumsily pulled her over onto
the couch, just in time for Stephanie and Jamie to appear. “We’ve been looking
for you guys,” Stephanie said. “You’re the ones who knew Will best. Come on.”

“Um,” I said.

“Don’t worry, Steph,” Annie
said. “Lucy’s cool.”

Stephanie sighed. “Fine,
whatever. You can come. We need six people, anyway.”

The four of us followed
Stephanie and Jamie up the stairs. In the hallway, Stephanie pulled a hanging
cord, which brought down a ladder to the attic. I looked at Daniel and Annie,
but they were both looking up into the attic. No answers there. I looked at
Jeff, but he was floating along with a severe case of the drunken make-out
happies. Taking a deep breath, I followed the other five up the ladder.

The attic wasn’t a totally
finished room, but it had a wooden floor. Unlike every other attic I had been,
this one was uncluttered. It held no boxes, Christmas decorations, or baby
cribs. But on the floor was a circle of lit candles. A Ouija board, one of
those things with all the letters and words, was in the middle of the circle. I
hadn’t played with a spirit board since I was at a junior high slumber party
back in New Jersey. We all frowned, even Jeff.

“Everyone sit,” Stephanie said.

Daniel stammered, “Steph, I don’t
think—“

“Everyone sit!” she screeched.

Our butts hit the floor. It was
a surreal scene, with a swamp monster, some guy with an ear in his pocket, a
dancer, a living doll, a blonde Genie, and Frankenstein’s girlfriend all having
a huddle.

Jamie picked up the planchette,
the heart-shaped plastic piece you use with a Ouija board. It had an open
circle in the middle so you could see what word or letter it was indicating.
“You all know what this is. It’s a spirit board. They used to make them out of
coffins.”

In an impressive imitation of
Scooby Doo, Jeff asked, “Are we going to talk to g-g-g-ghosts with it, Raggy?”

Jamie flipped him the bird. “Shut
up, Jeff. I had to go to four stores to find this thing. They’re way too
popular on Halloween. Everyone know the rules?”

Daniel, Annie, Jeff, and I said,
“No.”

“Rule number one: never ask
about God.”

“Or politics,” Jeff said. Annie
slapped him in the back of the head.

Jamie ignored him. “Rule number
two: never ask when you are going to die. And rule three is never ask where the
gold is buried.”

“Stephanie,” Annie asked, “who
are going to talk to with this thing?”

“My Raggedy Andy,” Stephanie
said. “We’re going to talk to Will.”

I squirmed, and I wasn’t alone.

“That’s a bad idea,” Daniel
said. “Aren’t you talking to someone about this stuff? I think—“

Stephanie slammed her hands on
the dusty floor. The sound echoed in the empty room. “We’re talking to Will,
and that’s that.”

The rest of us murmured in
agreement. But all I could think was, Oh
my God, we’re going to die. Jamie will get possessed by a demon and wear our
guts for garters.

“Wait a second,” Stephanie said,
taking off her necklace, a silver locket. It slid from her fingers, coiling
into a pile on the edge of the board. “That will keep evil spirits from coming
through the board.”

I gulped as we reached for the
planchette.

“William Freese,” Jamie said in
her best attempt at a psychic performer. “Your closest friends—” She stopped
and looked at me. “Your closest friends and one tagalong wish to speak to you
tonight, on the first anniversary of your death.” She nudged Stephanie with her
elbow. “Go ahead, ask your question.”

“Are you there, Will?” Stephanie
asked.

The planchette didn’t move at
first. Then it slowly slid up to one corner of the board, next to a smiling
sun, where it pointed to the word ‘Yes.’

Annie whimpered. Jeff took one
hand off the planchette and put his arm around her.

Stephanie pressed her lips
together. “Will, baby, I miss you so much.”

The planchette moved under our
fingers. M-E-2.

I knew how a Ouija board worked.
It was just a subconscious ideomotor response, like with divining rods and pendulums.
Your body made movements so tiny you couldn’t see or feel them, and that moved
the planchette around the board. It was stronger with so many of us, sure, but
it was just kids playing pretend. But if I knew all that, why was my heart
pounding?

Daniel spoke up. “Is there
anything you want to tell us, Will?”

The planchette moved back up to ‘Yes.’ Then it quickly slid around the
board. M-O-V-E-O-N.

I looked at Daniel, studying his
face. He caught me looking and nodded.

He’s
trying to help her, I realized. Give
her some kind of closure. That’s the sweetest thing ever. Creepy, but sweet. I
would totally be his casting director. I would be his casting director so hard.

Stephanie was on the verge of
tears. “Sweetie, I won’t let you go. I can’t. How could you ask me to do that?”

The planchette didn’t move. I
glanced across at Daniel, in his spot beside Stephanie, and he only looked at
me expectantly. Oh, I get it. He can’t do it every time, or it
will be too obvious. So I spelled out B-E-C-U-Z-I-L-U-V-U.
Daniel winked his approval at me.

Stephanie exploded into sobs and
grabbed Daniel. I was ashamed to think, Girl,
I get that you’re going through a thing. But I will claw your eyes right out of
your—

“Will wouldn’t say that!” she
blubbered. “It’s a lie!”

Jamie patted her on the back.
“Why don’t we ask him something? Like a test? Something only Will would know.”

“Okay.” Stephanie sniffled. “Ask
where we first did it.”

“Uh,” I said.

“If this is really Will,” Jamie
said, “where did you and Stephanie first do it?”

I raised my eyebrows at Daniel,
but he only made a tiny shrug toward Stephanie. With her locked onto him, he couldn’t
move the planchette. I glanced at Annie, but she and Jeff were busy screwing
each other with their eyes.

I sucked in some air and exhaled
slowly. Daniel finally moved the planchette without my help. A-T-I-K.

It was a longshot, but the
payoff was worth it. Stephanie believed it was her lost love. She let go of
Daniel, so the rest of the conversation was easier. Long after my curfew, she
said her goodbyes and we blew out the candles.

We helped Stephanie get the last
of the stragglers out. Then she hugged the five of us, even me. “You’re a great
friend, Suzy,” she said.

“It’s Lucy,” I said, but she
didn’t hear me. Jamie promised to look after her for the night. Daniel offered the
rest of us a ride home in his Pinto. Jeff and Annie piled into the tiny
backseat and started going at it. I tucked my hair down and slid into the
passenger seat.

We drifted together through the
early morning. Daniel interrupted my thoughts of an impending death at the
hands of my father. “That was a great save up there. I didn’t even know they’d
had sex. How’d you guess it was in the attic?”

My heart skipped a beat. “Are
you serious? That wasn’t me.”

We stared at each other across
the car. “Oh my God,” Daniel said.

“It was me, you ninnies.”
Annie’s head poked up between us. “She told me all about their secret love
nest.” The four of us laughed for five full blocks.

“Great idea, Daniel,” Annie
said, still gasping for breath. “Telling Stephanie to move on was exactly what
she needed to hear.”

“That wasn’t me,” he said. “That
was Lucy.”

“Not me,” I said. “If it wasn’t
you guys, it must have been Jamie.”

“Nuh-uh,” Annie said. “No way.
Jamie totally believes all that stuff. Her room is like a New Age crystal emporium.
It must have been Jeff.”

Jeff’s voice floated up from the
back. “I don’t even know what you guys are talking about. The Gill Man was too
busy dreaming of Genie to pay attention to the craziness in that attic.”

@garaujo1 I dig the original X-Men run, even the later stuff by folks like Arnold Drake. It establishes so much, from Sentinels to Juggernaut to Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to Xavier dying over and over again.

@Barry_Cinematic Yes, it is! I think Screamers is cut, but no idea if they removed gore or bore. There's a longesr version on Dailymotion. I watched it on Prime and had fun. Your mileage may definitely vary! dailymotion.com/video/x20x2dm